Within a year, Bob was gone.
PCWorld memorialized Microsoft Bob in the "high-tech hall of shame" as #7 of the
25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. Bob's cousin,
Clippit was released with Office 1997. However with Office XP's release in 2001, Clippit met a similar fate as did Bob. (However, unlike Bob, Clippit was merely disabled by default, whereas Bob was removed.)

Bob and Clippit were functionally primordial and annoying -- and, yet, they were
ahead of their time in a in a pre-
virtual reality world. To be clear, Bob and Clippit were helpers, not
avatars. It was the sophisticated role-playing avators that brought virtual reality to the masses -- through games, such as
World of Warcraft and
SecondLife. What do you get when you combine an avatar with a bot? German company
COMbots says "... [communication] connections [are] represented by a high-quality 3-D character, or ComBOT, and emotions can be conveyed by means of animated symbols and images. ... you can send any data, whether pictures, files or video clips, in a matter of seconds by drag & drop. Media messages can contain photos, voice, folders or animated emotions." COMbots is too "cutsey" and will go the way of Microsoft Bob. However, like Bob, it too represents an early stepping stone to next-generation blended virtual / physical environment. Here's an example. I send my bot-driven avatar to the grocery store to purchase lettuce. My avatar's "eyes" are a type of Webcam, which allows the physical me to see if the lettuce is fresh. My avatar pays for the lettuce. Now, I don't have this completely worked out (like how does the lettuce get to my house). However, I am convinced that we are moving toward an environment in which the distinction between the virtual and the physical worlds are blurred. It will feel natural and be everyday practical. Which leads me to wonder, were we all wrong? Was Microsoft Bob really an innovator? Here's what the Pittsburgh Post Gazette said in 1999
Bob is dead; long live Bob.